u/Asleep_Ground1710

• Zanza: At first, playing only Blade 1, I didnt care for him at all. Found him to be a whatever villian, run of the mil JRPG god who replaced the far more interesting Egil who foiled Shulk really well. But once you compare his character to the Architect in Blade 2, it helps him. Shows the layers of Klaus and how a man could create a world with both arrogance and regret/melancholy.
• Malos: Intitally thought he was just a hammy villian. But endgame Blade 2 reveals a lot about what really drives him. His conversation with the Architect is fantastic, refuses the binary answer of "Malos wants to burn Alrest solely because of Amalthus", instead going for it's a choice they both made together. In probably my favorite scene in the Blade triology "Words can be a Curse", Malos reveals he knows Amalthus is influecing him towards nihilism but doesnt care, that he wants to burn Alrest for what it(and himself) did to Jin, and that he views himself as a monster, made him a S tier villian.

So ever since Persona 4, Atlus has written their stories like: Party Member gets introduced -> Gets kidnapped or invovled in the plot -> rest of the Party has to clear out some specific dungeon -> near end of the dungeon the new party member has like a 15 min crisis and character arc -> boss fight -> party member resolves arc and dungeon is done

I'm really not a fan of this format at all for party member writing. Feel like it can condense their arc into like one quick scene, and then they get ditched by the main story and shove the rest into the social link.

Like ignoring Junpei and Yukari of Persona 3, since they're like the best written party members Atlus has made for modern Persona, Mitsuru or Akihiko's arc in 3 last quite a lot for those games. It allows for the writers to explore their character deeper, and importantly their bonds with other party members. Like Mitsuru's friendship with Yukari is so well done in 3, and it couldnt have worked if you had the character dungeon of the month formula.

Idk my biggest wishes for Persona 6 are:

1. Stop condensing character arcs into like 15 min cutscenes at the end of a dungeon

2. Allow party members to develop off other party members

Saw the new Airbender movie and had some thoughts on the Avatar State

What's noticeable about the movie is how nerfed the State was. In the OG sereis, it's basically an near automatic win button(yeah there's the death in AS kills the Avatar), but it's overpowered in general. Young Aang who wasnt even a full master of Earth, Fire, Water basically bodied comic enhanced Ozai with ease in the finale. Now here he is struggling with Tagah and other bending matters.

In general it reminds me of how in a lot of anime or fantasy fiction where they have overpowered protags, they start increasing stakes by either power scaling or nerfing. Not a fan of this approach as it feels kinda cheap(oh look Tagah is a master airbender with a crazy magic staff and has couple unique airbender techniques like insta kill air bullet). When writing for OP protags, prefer other forms of stakes(poiltical/social, moral, etc).

With Aang specifically, it's just hard to have stakes given AS mastery, energybending, and his powertful friends. But same thing extends to any Avatar once they gain control of the AS and energybending.

For me some of them would bebe:

• Melee Fox: Honestly think he is the healthiest best character ever released in a Smash game. Doesnt really invaldiate the mid tiers(that's more Sheik, Puff, Peach). Very diverse combo tree. High tech skill. Doesnt camp that much in top level except vs Puff. Doesnt really use air camping or planking. Most characters have a good combo and edgeguard flow chart on him to prevent Fox from being too overbearing. Melee also has really strong DI and SDI as well. Only gripe is controller rulesets(notches especially shouldnt be legal imo).
• Brawl Marth: Very cool character, esp when played by Leon, Mr.R, or Mikeneko. Lot of cool frame trapes and tech chases. Love Nair 1 and DB1 combo extensions. Only realy gripe is the grab release infinite on Ness and Lucas
• Post Nerfs Sheik Smash 4: Lots of cool combo and frame traps. Had Marthritis occasionally, and in a game with ton of rage jank, could work against Sheik. Very movement heavy. Shoutout Void.
• Ult Joker: Peak Leo Joker was a work of art. Cool tech with grapple cancels and gun dashes. Thankfully Tweek's super campy timeout Joker never became a thing.